racism

The week Alton Sterling, Philando Castile, and five Dallas police officers were shot and killed, my friend, Logan, pulled out a mixing bowl and a recipe, turned on her oven, and made a batch of blueberry lemon squares. When the squares had cooled, she cut them, arranged them on a plate, and wrote out a card.

“Dear Neighbor, we have never met, but I want you to know that for the past year I have been praying for you every time I drive by your home,” the note read in part.

Logan then gathered her kids into her mini-van, drove across the bridge between her own primarily white neighborhood and the neighborhood comprised primarily of people of color across the way, and knocked on the door of the house she’d driven past and prayed for all year long.

Logan’s dream was to figure out a way for that bridge to connect more than divide. When Sue and Charles opened their door, Logan introduced herself, handed over the plate of blueberry lemon squares, and, after chatting for a bit, shared her vision with them.

By the time the conversation ended, the three had a plan to host a “Bridge Party” between their two neighborhoods – a block party during which neighbors who don’t ordinarily intersect will have the opportunity to get to know one another.

Because, as Logan pointed out, “To love our neighbors is so much better when we know our neighbors.”

It’s so much easier, isn’t it, to make broad statements about “us” and “them” when we don’t know the “them”? It’s so much easier to judge and generalize people when they are simply a nameless, faceless group – Blacks, Whites, Muslims, Christians, Atheists, Gays, Republicans, Democrats, Police Officers – than it is when the people in those groups become individuals with faces and names, stories and histories.

My friend Logan was right. To love our neighbors is better when we know our neighbors because knowing creates the potential for a richer, fuller experience. Knowing opens the way to relationship. But, honestly, to love our neighbors is also easier when we know our neighbors, because when we know a person, we more easily see ourselves in their story; we more easily see our commonalities, instead of our differences.

Logan left Sue and Charles’ home that afternoon with the beginnings of a collaborative plan to build a bridge between their two communities. She also left with an invitation: Sue offered to teach Logan how to make biscuits in Logan’s kitchen the following week. A few days later I saw the photo on Facebook: Sue and Logan, holding a tray of biscuits hot out of the oven.

The week Alton Sterling, Philando Castile, and the five Dallas police officers were killed was a terrible week, a hopeless, despairing week fraught with anxiety and unrest, a week filled with political statements, angry rhetoric, and bitter exchanges on social media.

But for some, it was also a week of first, tentative steps toward real empathy, compassion, and relationship. It was a knock on a stranger’s door, a plate of blueberry lemon squares, a slightly awkward conversation that birthed the beginning of a new friendship.

I hear hope and love in that ordinary story. I hear God’s invitation to take a step with him toward bringing heaven to earth. Above all, I hear a call in that story to move from the general to the specific, from the nameless, faceless “them” into real relationship with our neighbors.

It’s not what you think. We didn’t fight over sex or money or who didn’t empty the dishwasher. We argued about Alton Sterling.

You know about Alton Sterling, right? If you don’t, watch this video. [warning: graphic content] And this one. You won’t want to, because the videos are indescribably horrible, and the one with Sterling’s widow and his fifteen-year-old son will shatter your heart into pieces.

But watch the videos anyway. Because that’s the first step. If we want to walk with our black brothers and sisters in solidarity, we must first be willing to step into the pain and the horror that is their reality.

I spent most of yesterday in the library working on line edits and fact checking for the Luther book. I saw, briefly, a mention of the story about Alton Sterling’s death on Facebook, but I quickly clicked away. I told myself I needed to focus on getting my edits done, but truthfully, I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to go there. Again. The library was a fabulous place to hide my head in the sand, to tell myself I didn’t have to respond or engage, that this incident didn’t have anything to do with me and besides, I couldn’t do anything to fix it anyway.

When I got home, Brad asked me if I’d heard about the shooting. Then he asked me if I’d seen the video of Sterling’s widow and son. I said no. He said, simply, “It’s heartbreaking.”

I walked over to my laptop, typed Alton Sterling into Google, and clicked play on the video. And as I watched Alton Sterling’s fifteen-year-old son break down into wracking sobs on national television while his mother spoke with a ferocity and determination I’ve never before seen, something happened in me. Something inside of me broke as I watched that young man weep in utter, desperate grief.

Watching that video, I couldn’t help but think of my own son, who will turn fifteen next month. “That could be Noah,” I thought to myself.

But then, almost immediately, I realized, “No.”

Because the fact is, Noah will not have to face the particular grief, hopelessness and desolation that engulfs Alton Sterling’s child today. Because the fact is, Noah’s father will not be shot multiple times by a police officer as he lays pinned to the ground, tasered, in a convenience store parking lot. My sons don’t have to worry about that scenario ever being a realistic possibility because we, as white people, are protected from that.

Four days after we celebrated July Fourth with fireworks and barbeques and parades, this much is painfully clear: not everyone lives in the same America Land of the Free that I inhabit. Not everyone gets to experience the same kind of freedom I and my family do, day in and day out.

I didn’t cry when I watched Alton Sterling’s son weep on national television. I watched that video unblinking and stony-faced, anger coursing through my veins and boiling up on my insides. I had the overwhelming desire to protest, loudly, violently. I wanted to hold a #BlackLivesMatter sign above my head and shout at the top of my lungs and stomp my feet. I wanted to rage. I wanted to riot.

For a few minutes, I think I understood, at least in part, the anger and despair I hear in the voices of my black sisters and brothers. For a few minutes, I think I finally understood, at least a little bit, the depth of their weariness and hopelessness. Sitting at my desk chair, my eyes on my computer screen, I felt tired, heavy, burdened. I felt disgusted and enraged. Above all, I felt utterly hopeless and helpless.

Brad wanted to talk about the incident in a calm, level-headed way. This is Brad. He is calm and level-headed, always. I love this about Brad. But in that moment, I would have none of it. I was irrational, over the top, thrashing around the kitchen, banging plates and silverware onto the table, slamming cabinet doors. I didn’t want to talk. I didn’t want to be level-headed.

I wanted to vent. I wanted to rage. I wanted to make dramatic, over-the-top statements about punishment and justice.

Thus the argument.

Later in the evening, after Brad and I had smoothed our ruffled feathers, I headed out to the garden. Weeding is my answer to every angst and burden, but as I surveyed the landscape from outside the fence, despair washed over me. We’ve been out-of-town for a month. The garden was a disaster, weeds covering nearly every inch of dirt, vines weaving in and out of the pickets, wrapping their tendrils around leaves and blooms, strangling.

The work before me seemed hopeless, futile. How could I possibly make a dent in such a mess?

An hour later, I stood with the weed bucket full to overflowing in my arms. My back ached and my limbs were stiff, and as I surveyed the garden again, I saw that it looked much the same, covered in weeds and vines and dead leaves. As I turned to dump my bucket of weeds into the barrel, though, I glanced down at my feet. The eight-by-two-foot path I’d weeded was clean and clear, empty of every weed, every errant vine, every dead leaf.

It was a small area, barely noticeable in the garden as a whole, but the patch I had tended was beautiful.

There is a time and a place for anger and despair in the face of tragedies like the ones we are witnessing this week. There’s good reason to feel hopeless, because the mess we are surveying is a big one. The landscape is in chaos. It looks insurmountable.

But let me remind you of this:

Each one of us has a small patch to tend. The landscape as a whole is overwhelming, full of chaos and brokenness, ugliness and disorder, but there is space in there for each one of us to do good work.

It will likely be a small space. Our work itself will likely be small work. But when the grief, anger, and despair lift, know that a small patch awaits you.

Cara Meredith is a new friend, and I am just so glad she said yes to a guest post here today. She’s living and writing about things I’ve been thinking a lot about lately – namely race in America and how to love our neighbors better, especially those who look or live differently than we do. I appreciate her fresh, honest voice so much, and am really excited to see where God leads her next.

I take for granted that talking about race is a part of our everyday existence, the salt and pepper of our dinner table conversations. I take for granted that my neighbors – who are black and white, Latino and Asian, lesbian and gay and straight – occupy the same space we do and aren’t afraid to talk about what others sometimes feel is the elephant in the room.

As I type these words, though, I realize this isn’t always the case. It’s not this way in many parts of America, including where I grew up, and it may not be the case where you live, too.

But I don’t think it has to be this way.

In the mostly white, suburban town I was raised in, we celebrated diversity when our teachers made us attend the once a year, all school assembly. We didn’t think about what might be like to be different, just as we didn’t think issues of race had anything to do with us.

So we just avoided the topic altogether. Talking about race was impolite and uncomfortable. It wasn’t what we were supposed to be doing or saying.

But by not talking about race, we denied some children their very identities, the individual parts that made them who they were.

We denied them their stories.

“In the end,” Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, “we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”

His words haunt me. How many times have I kept silent, because I didn’t know what question I should ask, because I felt talking about a certain subject made me uncomfortable?

I guess you could say I’m on a learning journey now.

After teaching high school English for four years, I worked in a diverse environment, as a youth ministry director. As I got to know these teenagers, I learned that denying a student their ethnic culture was to deny their very being. Asking questions became my mission: Who are you? Who’s your family? What makes you so gloriously spectacular, so uniquely you?

While none of the questions implicitly asked about race, I found that race was almost always in the answers. And the more stories I heard, the more I wanted to know and hear and engage with the world around me.

By the time I met my husband – whose skin happens to be a beautiful shade of chocolate brown – I knew that I’d never be able to avoid the topic of race again.

We knew when children came along someday that they’d experience a whole new understanding of color, solely because of their mixed-raced identities. We also knew they’d come to understand race differently because of how their grandfather broke down barriers for all Americans during the Civil Rights Movement. But mostly, we knew they’d simply be loved for who they were. And isn’t that the hope of every parent, everywhere?

As for my family, we’ll continue to talk about race around the dinner table. But then we’ll stop. And pause. And thank the good Lord for who he’s created us to be on the inside.

And we’ll give thanks for every part of our story.

Cara Meredith is a writer and speaker from the San Francisco Bay Area. She is a member of the Redbud Writers Guild and co-host of Shalom in the City’s monthly book club podcast. She’s also currently writing her first book about her journey into learning to see color. She holds a Masters of Theology (Fuller Seminary), and can be found on her blog, Facebook and Twitter. She and her husband, James, try to dance nightly and live life to the fullest with their two young sons.

Last month I wrote a post here about the church’s role in confronting racism. As a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), which is 96% white, I was critical of both my own complacency and that of my white Christian brothers and sisters regarding the problem of racism in this country. As I expected, the post generated some heated comments (mostly on Facebook when I shared it there). However one response in particular caught my attention.

“Complaining about a problem without offering a solution is called whining,” the commenter wrote, quoting Teddy Roosevelt. “Doing is better than talking. Talk is cheap,” he added.

I bristled when I read that response. After all, I am a writer. Writing is what I “do,” and I believe that dialogue is an important first step in acknowledging and addressing a problem. Once I simmered down, though, I realized the commenter was right.

A couple of weeks ago my husband, our two boys, and I waited in line, paper plates in hand, at a “Soul Food Feast” hosted by a local African Methodist Episcopal church in honor of Black History Month. I held my plate out over each steaming pan as candied yams, collard greens, fried chicken, green beans, macaroni and cheese, and corn bread were piled high. My ten-year-old son followed one step behind me, shaking his head and murmuring, “No thank you” to each spoonful held out to his empty plate.

“He’s really picky,” I explained sheepishly to the woman behind the pan of yams. She nodded, smiling, and then leaned forward to speak to the woman standing at the end of the table. “Give him a double helping of macaroni and cheese. He doesn’t want anything else,” she said.

Though the women were perfectly gracious, it was an awkward moment. Nothing broadcasts “We don’t exactly fit in” like your white kid refusing to eat pretty much all the soul food at the Soul Food Feast.

We sat down at a half-empty table occupied by two people, one at either end. The older gentleman immediately engaged Brad in conversation. “So, what do you think about the Syrian situation?” I heard him ask my husband. Grateful I didn’t have to navigate that landmine, I introduced myself to the woman sitting next to me.

She eyed Rowan’s plate, eyebrows raised. “Is that all he’s going to eat?” she asked. I nodded, cringing again, and then proceeded to barrage her with 106 small-talky questions. “Do you have kids?” “What do you do for work?” “Are you a member of this church?” “Do you have any fun plans for the rest of your Sunday?” She was personable, but not exactly talkative, and as I prattled on, I realized she was either, one: a bonafide introvert, or two: silently bemoaning the fact that, of all the people on God’s green earth, she got stuck with the chatty white lady who wouldn’t let her eat her fried chicken in peace. The less she said, the more animated I became, because that’s what I do when I’m nervous and uncomfortable: I talk very enthusiastically and energetically in a voice pitched one octave higher than usual.

The truth is, the whole interaction was a little awkward. Not that the people weren’t gracious and hospitable – they were – but simply that it all felt a little uncomfortable.

But here’s the thing: awkwardness is inevitable when you step out of your comfortable place and into an unfamiliar one, among people who are different from you and who have different customs and rituals. You will likely make mistakes. You might say the wrong thing. Your child might turn his nose up at the food offered to him, in spite of the elbow you nudge into his ribs. You will pull a chair up to a table of people you don’t know and who don’t look like you and perhaps don’t share your same traditions, and you will make stilted small talk or sweat through interminable pauses in the conversation. If you’re like me, you will be extra cheerful, but beneath that chipper exterior, you will feel nervous and a little bit out of place.

But this is precisely why “doing” is important, in spite of the inevitable awkwardness. Talk is good, and I believe there is a time and a place for it. But talk is also easy because it allows us to keep uncomfortable issues at arm’s length. Talking about racism gives us the false sense that we are involved and “doing something.” Actually stepping into a new and unfamiliar situation, on the other hand, illustrates in a very real way what we have failed, or refused, to see.

I can talk, or write, all day about how I, as a white woman, am a member of and benefit from the dominant culture. But the fact is, though I’ve lived a racially segregated life for 45 years, until I stepped into that church basement with all my awkwardness and discomfort, I’d never truly thought about what that means, why that is or why I should do anything about it. That afternoon I felt my white-ness in a way I rarely do, and although it was a little bit uncomfortable, it also showed me exactly where and how I need to change and grow in a way that merely talking or writing about “confronting racism” never will.

After three months of driving around town with a burned-out left tail light on my mini-van, I finally got it repaired. I don’t know what took me so long. It was just one thing after another – the holidays, a trip to Minnesota (in our other car, the one with both tail lights working), a looming book deadline, soccer games and choir rehearsal and “Mom, I’m out of clean clothes” again. I know, I know. No excuses really. It’s not safe to drive around with a broken tail light. I know this. But I did it anyway.

There’s a reason I’m telling you about my broken tail light. A few weeks ago my friend Shannon mentioned something in a blog post that caught my eye. Turns out, her son had been driving around with a burned-out tail light too. The difference was, his tail light was broken for less than 36 hours before he got it fixed, but in those 36 hours, he was pulled over by the local police four times. The fourth time ended with him sitting on the curb while the officers searched his car for drugs, of which there were none.

“It doesn’t matter that he’s never had a drug charge,” Shannon wrote. “What matters is that he’s black. He’s young. He has ‘that look.'”

That declaration stopped me in my tracks. Suddenly I understood, in a real, in-my-face kind of way, what white privilege is and exactly how I benefit from it. That young black man and I committed the exact same infraction. Robert paid a price (the inconvenience of being pulled over four times; the humiliation of sitting on the curb while the officers searched his car for the non-existent drugs; the hassle of having to get his tail light fixed ASAP) because he is black and male. I didn’t because I am white and female.

Now you might argue that there are other factors in involved. And it’s true — I’m a 45-year-old woman. I have noticeably gray hair. I drive a mini-van, the be-all and end-all of mom-mobiles.

You might argue that you, too, have been stopped for a broken tail light. Or your son has. Or your neighbor has. And you’re white (or your son or your neighbor is). So what’s my point?

My point is, even if you, as a white person, have been stopped for a broken tail light, I doubt you were stopped four times. In less than 36 hours. And if you have been stopped for a broken tail light, I doubt you were asked to step out of the car and sit on the curb as the traffic whizzed past and everyone craned their necks to look at the spectacle of flashing blue lights as the officer searched your car for drugs.

I drove my car for three months with a broken tail light, and I was not stopped once. I had the luxury of taking my sweet time getting it fixed. That’s called white privilege.

My friend’s black son drove his car with a broken tail light for 36 hours and was pulled over four times. He couldn’t wait until it was convenient for him to get his car fixed. He had to do it immediately, for fear of getting pulled over a fifth time. That’s called racism.

And for those of us who are churchy, religious types, it’s also called a sin. Racism is a sin.

We don’t think of racism as a sin, do we? We think of racism as wrong, and bad, and something that other, bad people participate in – red-necky type people who use words that begin with the letter “n” and the like. But most of us white people don’t think racism has really much to do with us. We don’t think of racism as a sin because that would implicate us. Defining racism as a sin suggests that we might play a role in racism too.

I’m glad the ELCA is taking steps to confront racism and our role in it. My denomination of four million people is 96% white. Racism and white privilege and what we can or should do about either isn’t exactly on our radar. But it should be and it needs to be, because of this:

“You are the body of Christ, and each of you is a part of it…If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.” (1 Corinthians 12:27 & 26).

What Paul declared 2,000 years ago is still true today. We are all part of one body, the Body of Christ, and when one part of that body suffers, we all suffer.

Friends, part of the Body of Christ is suffering badly, has been suffering badly for hundreds of years. Our black sisters and brothers are suffering terribly, and we are looking the other way. We are doing nothing. We don’t even notice what’s happening because we don’t have to – we have the privilege of not noticing.

Case in point:

My church broadcast Bishop Eaton’s “Confronting Racism” live webcast last Thursday evening. It was advertised in the worship bulletin for our three services the Sunday before and on the church website, and members were invited to attend a viewing of the webcast and then stay for a brief discussion afterwards.

Out of the more than 4,000 members of my church, 11 people attended the live webcast; 9 stayed for the discussion.

For the record, my church has a highly active membership. More than 700 youth and children are involved in Sunday school, confirmation and youth ministry. More than 600 people regularly participate in adult education opportunities such as small groups and classes. More than 650 people are actively involved in global and local mission work in Honduras, Tanzania, Lincoln and other local communities. The garden on our church grounds that is planted and maintained by church volunteers provides more than five tons of food annually to the local Food Bank. 25% of all financial giving by members to the church supports local and global ministries. I could go on.

What I’m saying is that these people are faithful, loving, obedient servants of Christ. They do good work. They help lots of people. They make a huge impact on those in need, both in our community and beyond. They love God, and they love their neighbors.

And yet clearly, the problem of racism is simply not registering. Racism in America may be seen as a problem generally…but it’s not seen as a problem for us — for upper-middle class white people attending a white church and, for the most part, living in white suburbia.

I get it. I do! Let me say this straight up: two years ago, I would not have been among the 11 people who attended the “Confronting Racism” webcast. I probably would have noticed the announcement in the bulletin, but I would have immediately dismissed it as irrelevant to me – to my world, to my family, to my personal spiritual growth. I would not have given the idea of attending that racism webcast a second thought.

So what changed?

Several factors play into this metamorphosis, but one factor stands out in particular: I became good friends with a black woman. We’ve been friends for six years, but only in the last two years or so have I begun to see the world through her eyes. I’ve seen how I benefit from the color of my skin and how she is inhibited by others because of the color of hers. I’ve listened to her and heard her. I’ve begun to recognize some of my own mistakes, my own prejudices, my own biases. I’ve begun to see not only that racism exists, but that I play a role in its existence as well.

You might be rolling your eyes, and I don’t blame you. I know it sounds silly. I have one black friend, after all, and here I am, ranting and raving and all in your grill on the subject of racism. It’s a little know-it-allish, I realize.

But I’m not going to apologize or feel ashamed about the fact that one friendship with one person of color has impacted me and changed me so dramatically. Because the truth is, that’s what love does. When you love someone, you want to make everything good for them. When you love someone, you want that person to have all the good things in life that you have too. I love my friend, and I want to help make the world a better place alongside her. It really is that simple.

I don’t really know how to end this blog post, and it’s so long, the two of you who are still with me are undoubtedly thinking For the love of all mankind, just end it already! In a way, not wrapping it up is the perfect way to end it, because the truth is, racism isn’t all wrapped up, not by a long shot. I’m not cool with my 96% white church. I’m not cool with 11 people out of 4,000 attending a discussion about racism. I’m not cool with a young black man getting pulled over four times in 36 hours for a broken tail light. Most of all, I’m not cool with my own complacency anymore.

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Living out faith in the everyday is no joke. If you’re anything like me, some days you feel full of confidence and hope, eager to proclaim God’s goodness and love to the world. Other days…not so much.

Let me say straight up: I wrestle with my faith. Most days I feel a little bit like Jacob, wrangling his blessing out of God. And most days I’m okay with that. I believe God made me a questioner and a wrestler for a reason, and I believe one of those reasons is so that I can connect more authentically with others.